I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to electronics, and more specifically to techniques for performing blending in a graphics processing unit.
II. Background
Graphics processing units (GPUs) are specialized hardware units used to render 2-dimensional (2-D) and/or 3-dimensional (3-D) images for various applications such as video games, graphics, computer-aided design (CAD), simulation and visualization tools, imaging, etc. A GPU may perform various graphics operations to render an image. One such graphics operation is blending, which is also commonly referred to as alpha blending, alpha compositing, etc. Blending may be used to obtain transparency effects in an image. Blending may also be used to combine intermediate images that may have been rendered separately into a final image. Blending involves combining a source color value with a destination color value in accordance with a set of equations. The equations are functions of the color values and alpha values. Different results may be obtained with different equations and/or different alpha values.
A GPU may support various blending modes that can achieve different visual effects. Each blending mode uses a different set of equations for combining the color and alpha values to achieve a particular visual effect. A GPU may use dedicated hardware to directly implement the sets of equations for all supported blending modes. However, such a direct implementation of the blending equations may be complex and cost prohibitive.
There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to efficiently implement blending equations for various blending modes supported by a GPU.